Union: Nigerian strike leader arrested
 | Nigerian Labour Congress leader Adams Oshiomhole speaks to the press in this July 9, 2004, photo. |
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LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigerian security forces arrested the country's top union official at gunpoint on Saturday, his union said, ahead of a general strike called for Monday which the government has declared illegal.
But Nigeria's State Security Service (SSS) said Adams Oshiomhole, president of the umbrella Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was "questioned and released" after a misunderstanding with officers and denied that they had arrested him.
The NLC has called the general strike due to start on Monday in protest at rising gasoline prices brought about by the government's deregulation of the domestic market.
The union said it was worried about the safety of Oshiomhole who was arrested at the airport in the capital Abuja en route to southwest Benin city and taken to an unknown location.
"There are now legitimate concerns about his life and safety given the frantic efforts of this government to deny his detention and portray it as a scheme cooked up by the NLC," the union said in a statement.
Oshiomhole "was abducted by some SSS personnel numbering about 15 who overpowered him, wrestled him to the ground and bundled him into a standby Peugeot 504," the NLC said in an earlier statement.
A lawyer representing the umbrella union said the strike would go ahead regardless of the alleged arrest.
"The strike will go ahead. This intimidation will not stop it. On the contrary it will make the strike even more popular," said lawyer and human rights activist Femi Falana.
Industry analysts say that the four-day strike would unlikely affect oil production but that exports could be affected if unions decide to call a prolonged total strike.
Pressure on government
The union said the walkout would initially go on until midnight on Thursday, but left open the possibility of a more protracted strike if negotiations still did not yield an agreement after a two-week break.
Opposition from the NLC is the main obstacle to President Olusegun Obasanjo's plans to deregulate the fuel market, a key measure in a basket of economic reforms recently backed by the International Monetary Fund.
Last month a Nigerian high court ruled that the NLC, which has already called four general strikes over the last year in protest at rising fuel prices, did not have the right to strike over matters unrelated to working conditions.
The Nigerian National Assembly is also currently debating Obasanjo's proposals to break the monopoly of the NLC to bring it in line with international labor standards.
General strikes in Nigeria over the last year have not disrupted the top African producer's over 2.3 million barrel per day oil output, but have sometimes led to civil unrest.
Falana said he was working to secure the release of Oshiomhole and another activist, Femi Aborisade, arrested on Friday in relation to the strike threat.
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